Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Critic Score
Based on 15 reviews
2002 Ratings: #9 / 259
User Score
2002 Rank: #26
Liked by 425 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Uncut

Even by their standards, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is astonishing ... Plainly, this is music abnormally alive with possibilities.

90
Tiny Mix Tapes

Yoshimi is the soundtrack to the greatest lousy Saturday afternoon movie never made. Yoshimi is the lush brushstrokes that define the most childish themes, an opera into a comic book, or a comic book into an opera. Just look at the cover.

90
AllMusic

Funny, beautiful, and moving, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots finds the Flaming Lips continuing to grow and challenge themselves after delivering a masterpiece.

90
NME
'Yoshimi...' sets yet another benchmark.
90
Paste

With the release of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the Flaming Lips seem poised to square off against their alternative brethren once again.

90
No Ripcord
Fundamentally, the album is based around the concept, that life is scattered with random shots of excruciating pain, but there is such beauty and wonder to be found that you need to hang onto it as it passes and cherish it's fleeting brilliance.
90
Alternative Press
Smartly packaged pop that's as slick as Stereolab, but human enough--thanks to Coyne's earnestness and sincerity--to malfunction in all the right places.
84
Pitchfork
Despite this album's disappointing brevity (45 minutes, padded with two instrumentals), its dense production and well-crafted melodies offer long-term replayability.
83
Entertainment Weekly

Songs like ”Fight Test” and ”Do You Realize” have various tics – echoes, chirps, and unresolved musical tangents abound – but they’re so sweet-souled that such sins are easily forgiven.

80
Rolling Stone

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots isn't the end-to-end triumph that was 1999's The Soft Bulletin ... But the production is equally ambitious, with burbling electrobeats underpinning sci-fi orchestrations that sound like the brainchild of Esquivel and the Orb.

80
The Guardian
We have all had days of feeling puny, mere specks in a mystifying universe. The trick Wayne Coyne perfects on the Flaming Lips' 10th album is to fuse that sense of futility with an element of euphoria.
80
Q Magazine
This is one of those exquisitely rare records on which maturity and vitality are equally matched.
60
NOW Magazine

It’s effortlessly smooth, but Yoshimi Battles also sounds like the end of a phase. The Lips have been essentially mining the same territory for three albums now. They may be running out of ideas.

dias
95

the robots defeated me

grave
79

Flaming Lips’ most popular album, and I can kind of see why.

Despite “The Soft Bulletin” having some better highs. I did end up liking this more, since it feels more consistent than that album. This record also really succeeds at this psychedelic dreamy style. And the acoustic guitar and almost trippy synths combined with a slight amount of reverb make for a signature psychedelic pop experience. But since there's only a slight amount of reverb, it makes this album way more ... read more

Stupidrob
93

One of Psychedelic Pop’s absolute finest.

Just an absolute blast to get through with its unique concepts and writing.

I think the metaphor for Yoshimi battling Pink Robots representing her cancer is a very interesting and kind of dark, I would’ve never expected any album I’ve covered to even talk about that, let alone this album.

I was very skeptical at first, but now I’m hooked.
To anyone who is considering to give this album a shot, please do it’s an absolute ... read more

denkirena
100

I can't stop listening to it.

AverageWzrfan
85

Whether you read this album as being about cancer, or as literally about fighting robots, The Flaming Lips deliver an enjoyable experience on this 2002 release.

The electronics on this album are unbeatable, possibly some of the most original sounds I’ve ever heard, and they blend well with the quirky indie style that The Lips had already been going for. The songwriting of Wayne Coyne is also pretty great, even if the album isn’t a concept album, the way Wayne wrote it allows for ... read more

TheBigDogg
99

man oh man!

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